sony hi res lcd display with 8 widescreen quotation

LCD: LCD stands for liquid crystal display, and it’s the most common kind of television besides OLED (defined below). LCD TVs shine an LED backlight through a panel of liquid crystal, a malleable substance that reacts to electricity, opening or closing when jolted. In LCD TVs, the liquid crystal opens to allow the backlight through or closes to block it. The specific details of the opening/closing are dependent upon the arrangement of the pixels: The most common LCD arrangements are Vertical Alignment (VA) and In-Plane Switching (IPS), with the former tending to produce higher contrast and the latter tending to produce wider viewing angles. All so-called “LED” TVs are really LCD TVs, as are all current QLED and ULED TVs.

OLED: An organic light-emitting diode, or OLED, TV creates light inside each individual pixel without using a backlight and can dim each pixel individually all the way down to black, which LCD TVs can’t do. This tech gives an OLED TV an infinite contrast ratio and other benefits to help create an overall better-looking image, although at considerable additional cost. You can read more about OLED technology in this article.

Mini-LEDs: Every LCD TV made today currently uses LEDs to produce the light that shines through the LCD panel. Most TVs use LED lights that pass through a diffuser to light up the entire LCD screen. Mini-LEDs, which some TVs use, are much smaller than traditional LEDs, so TV makers can install more of them and thus create more zones of local dimming, which means less blooming or halos around bright objects. Mini-LEDs are completely different from micro-LEDs, an available (though very expensive) technology that employs individual red, green, and blue LEDs to produce an image without needing an LCD panel at all.

Nits: Also called candelas per square meter (cd/m²), this unit of luminance measures how much light a TV can produce. Previously, TVs could output 200 to 300 nits, and standard dynamic range (SDR) content was graded and mastered with 100 nits as the standard. With high dynamic range (HDR), content is mastered with 1,000, 4,000, or 10,000 nits as the standard; so, the more nits an HDR TV can display, the more accurately it can display the highlights in HDR material without having to reduce the brightness of the highlights or clip them.

Wide color gamut: Ultra HD content has a wider color gamut than standard HDTV content; right now, most UHD content is mastered with the same DCI/P3 color gamut used in theatrical cinema (the ultimate goal is the even larger Rec. 2020 color gamut). This expanded color gamut allows a TV to display richer reds, blues, and greens than ever before. Some TVs use quantum-dot technology to produce this wider color gamut.

Quantum dots: Quantum dots are a color-enhancing technology primarily found in LCD TVs (though some 2022 OLED TVs now have them as well). Chiefly employed as a filter that’s painted onto a substrate, quantum dots are microscopic nano-crystals that, when struck with blue light, produce very vivid red or green light (depending upon the size of the crystal). Quantum dots are the primary technology that allows LCD TVs to produce the wide color gamut required to display HDR content properly, as they greatly increase the color saturation of red and green.

Refresh rate: All digital displays (including TVs) have what’s called a refresh rate, measured in hertz (Hz), shorthand for cycles per second. A TV’s refresh rate refers to how quickly it displays new incoming video information on a nanosecond-to-nanosecond basis. While there are many possible refresh rates, most TVs come with either a 60 Hz refresh rate (meaning 60 screen refreshes per second) or a 120 Hz refresh rate (120 screen refreshes per second). Ideally, a TV will have the highest refresh rate possible, but there are diminishing returns for higher refresh rates during many types of content. A 120 Hz TV has advantages when watching 24p content or mitigating judder (definitions below), and tends to produce less input lag when playing video games, but it won’t provide advantages for most forms of cable TV or streaming content. In 2022, some manufacturers introduced 144 Hz TVs meant to appeal specifically to gamers, but the majority of TVs still have 60 or 120 Hz refresh rates.

Judder: This term refers to a slightly jerky motion that can occur when 24p film content appears on a TV with a 60 Hz refresh rate. In such situations, to make 24 frames match up to the 60 Hz display, half of the frames appear two times and the other half appear three times. This display technique causes judder, which is most noticeable on panning shots. Some 120 Hz displays avoid this effect by repeating each film frame five times, while some 60 Hz panels run at 48 Hz to show each frame twice.

Motion smoothing: Motion smoothing, sometimes called MEMC (Motion Estimation/Motion Compensation), refers to a TV’s ability to intelligently create new frames to create smoother-looking or less juddery motion. Most modern TVs can artificially increase their refresh rates to smooth out fast or difficult sequences, but the efficacy of this motion smoothing is often dependent upon the TV’s native refresh rate. Motion smoothing is also the cause of the “soap opera effect,” where cinematic/24p content looks more like a daytime soap opera due to the insertion of unnecessary frames. The best TVs come with multiple motion smoothing presets, and some even allow the user to fine-tune the degree of judder reduction and frame interpolation employed. When used correctly, motion smoothing can make content like sports and nature documentaries look more realistic, but we prefer it be turned off for content like premium TV, movies, and video games.

CRTs can be abundant if you have good places in your local community to look, but they are getting trickier to track down each passing year. And while nothing’s stopping you from using a modern LCD for retro gaming, you may want to track down a square-shaped LCD (mostly 4:3 aspect ratio) so your classic content seems a bit more “at home” — avoiding those black bars.

So whether you’re looking for a cheap 4:3 LCD to use with your MiSTER FPGA setup, have a classic personal computer, or just want something for watching “full screen” video content or a emulation box to run on, I’m hoping this guide is helpful in your shopping.

Granted LCDs, especially older models, aren’t ideal for retro gaming compared to CRTs. LCDs often down’t have as deep of black colors and there is input lag involved among some other issues.

However, LCDs are easier to move around and store and use less electricity. And even though there are many die-hard CRT fans out there, there are also many long-time retro fans that have been using the recommended monitors below for a while and been happy with their performance. I’ve even quoted and handful of enthusiasts to give you a good perspective on these recommendations. And don’t forget, eventually LCDs might be much easier to find and purchase remotely then the CRTs counterparts.

Early LCD monitors may show a lack of technical maturity, however, near some of the later ones that we are focusing on have some decent IPS technology with reasonable color and response times.

Availability and practicality are the main reason for me rounding up this guide. I know many retro gamers will focus on hunting down and maintaining CRTs, but as time goes on, this is becoming much less practical for the average person.

In the end, I thought this would be a fun, lighthearted look at some options for those that are interested. If you have any commentary on the matter, please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section below. Just be respectful — not looking for CRT vs LCD wars